Rep. Pedersen 'hits the ground running' in first year as lawmaker

By CHRIS MCGANN, P-I REPORTER

Published
10:00 pm PDT, Sunday, April 29, 2007

OLYMPIA -- After a grueling campaign that cost more than $180,000 and took him to just about every door in Seattle's 43rd Legislative District, Seattle attorney Jamie Pedersen got what he wanted, a seat in the state House of Representatives.

Most new lawmakers come in with preconceptions about how things work in Olympia -- not all of those hold up.

Pedersen, a Democrat who was a successful lawyer with the firm Preston Gates and Ellis before taking office, said many people discouraged him from running because they said he would be "surrounded by people who he wouldn't enjoy working with."

"I really haven't found that to be the case," he said. "There are some, but for the most part there are people who are really bright, who are really engaged, who care a ton about the things they are working on and work hard. ... It's a good process."

Pedersen is most proud of his role in passing domestic partnership legislation.

The new law creates a domestic partnership registry with the state and provides enhanced rights for same-sex couples, including hospital visitation, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and inheritance rights when there is no will.

"It was a big thrill to stand in the state reception room with the governor and my colleagues in the gay caucus and a lot of our colleagues in the Legislature and see that signed into law. ... It's very satisfying to make some forward progress on that issue," Pedersen said.

His predecessor, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said Pedersen is a good fit for the job.

Before last year's election, Murray had planned to stay neutral during the six-way race for the seat in the 43rd District, which includes Capitol Hill, Wallingford and the University District.

But when the state Supreme Court upheld the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which bars same-sex marriage, Murray endorsed Pedersen.

"I think it makes a difference to have somebody who actually is gay working on a gay issue. It makes a world of difference," Murray said. "He is gay, competent and knew the issue."

Pedersen has not let Murray down in that respect.

"He is committed to the issue and knows the issue and is going to continue to work hard. We're going to need a lot of hard work to move this issue forward," Murray said.

Murray said some new lawmakers come to Olympia ready to work, others "stumble around" for the first year.

Pedersen did not stumble around, he said. "He really hit the ground running," Murray said. "He was definitely one of the freshmen who showed incredible future potential."

Besides working on gay rights, Pedersen worked in areas ranging from transportation to health care.

"I had six bills that made it all the way through the process," he said. "That's a good experience for me to see how that works for a more normal bill, you know, not just the domestic partner bill, which was pretty high profile."

He said he's proud of those accomplishments, too.

"That foster kid housing program got funded," he said. "Hopefully that will help some kids keep from being homeless and make a better transition out of the foster care system. ... When you step back from the session, it feels to me like we really did manage to do some important things -- simple majority is a good example."

Lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would allow school districts to pass levies with a majority of votes instead of the 60 percent "supermajority" required now.

"That idea had been hanging around for a long time, and on the other hand, we had the system sort of work to slow down some ideas that aren't quite ready to go," he said.

Pedersen said progress in Olympia tends to be incremental for a variety of reasons.

In the case of gay marriage, the writing of the actual bill would not be complicated. "It's a one-page bill and then people would be protected, everybody knows that that would be the best protection. The reason that that has to be incremental is we have to give the public time to catch up to where we are."

Pedersen has been helped by the fact that the powerful speaker of the House, Frank Chopp, is also from his district.

"He has been fantastic to me," Pedersen said. "I think some of the other people of the caucus are a little jealous, to be honest.

"He's always been very accessible to me. He's made time for us to talk about district stuff. He went out of his way so that both Senator Murray and I could come in and talk about things that affected all of us."

That included issues ranging from the domestic partnership bill to specific items in the capital budget, Pedersen said.

Passing six bills is not the norm for freshman lawmakers.

"Being seatmates with the speaker of the House is not a bad thing," Pedersen said.